Educational Development Board

The Educational Development Board (EDB) brings you an introduction to the world of electronics and microcontrollers. The board along with an extensive manual (available in English and Dutch) will teach you the elements of electronics and microcontrollers. You will learn this elements by carrying out experiments. The experiments follow up in a logical, constructive order which will keep you encouraged to continue to the next experiment.

In the experiments the emphasis is laid on mixing ordinary components such as resistors and LED’s with a microcontroller. Where needed a simple explanation of the components and the theory of the microcontroller will be given.

The experiments can be placed in these subcategories:

• Basic I/O
• Serial communication with the UART
• Display output (LCD, 7 segment)
• Keyboard input (PS/2, Matrix, RC5 remote control)
• Advanced I/O - A/D conversion
• Other controller features
• Other interfaces (I²C, USB)
• Motors 
  
  

Features of the Educational Development Board

• USB Interface
• RS232 Interface
• PS2 Interface for Keyboard/Mouse
• HD44780 LCD connection
• Programming via Bootloader (RS232/USB)
• Compatible for programming with STK200/300 dongle (LPT)
• Supports ATMega48 (no boot loader), ATMega88, ATMega168
• Headers for all ports, GND and +5V
• Can be externally powered or used on USB bus power
• Bread board for carrying out the experiments 

Visual Basic code samples for USB/RS-232 communications in Windows, Drivers and datasheets are available on the EDB-CD.

The USB virtual COM port option is integrated in the Linux kernel, making it really plug and play.

Available products for the EDB

• EDB Kit (Includes PCB, Components, Printed Manual and EDB-CD)
• EDB Kit (Includes PCB, Printed Manual and EDB-CD)

Visit the online shop at MCSELEC to buy these online.

Downloads

• EDB Manual English
• Source code experiments
• EDB Handleiding Nederlands
• Broncode experimenten

Other Manual translations

• EDB Manual German language
• EDB Manual Polish language

Updates

• EDB Real Hardware Simulation with Basmon English (source)
• EDB Real Hardware Simulatie met Basmon Nederlands (bron)

Example of an experiment

Siren with the SOUND statement

Part list
1x Speaker RS267-6968 or equivalent
1x Elco ≈100uF
1x Resistor 120E
7x Bread board wires

Goals
Learning the SOUND statement

The SOUND statement gives you the possibility to generate various tones with a speaker. It’s ideal if you have an application in which you want to prompt the user specific situations. (OK or Error beep etc.) The SOUND statement is not meant to generate accurate frequencies, use a timer (Chapter 3.7.3) if you wish to do that.

For this experiment you can use an ELCO of about 100uF (but 47uF, 220uF will work as well) You can use an old PC speaker or you can order RS 267-6968. In most cases the speaker cannot be placed on the bread board so you will have to solder a wire to the speaker. Use a massive copper wire of about 0,5 mm.

Build the drawing shown below:



Program the ATMega88 with EDBexperiment14.bas and see if you understand the program code. You should here a siren alarm.

'--------------------------------------------------------------
'                        EDBexperiment14.bas
'       Experiment 14 for the Educational Development Board
'                  (c) 1995-2005, MCS Electronics
'                        Fileversion 1.0
'--------------------------------------------------------------
'
'Purpose:
'This program shows how to use the sound statement
'
'Conclusions:
'You should be able to hear a siren

$regfile  =  "m88def.dat"
$crystal  = 8000000
$baud  = 19200

Dim W As Word

W = 100

   Do
      Sound  Portd.3 , 5 ,W                  'SOUND  pin, duration, pulses
      W = W + 1
      If W > 1000 Then W = 100
   Loop

End

Product demonstrations

• Demonstration at Koning Willem I College, ’s-Hertogenbosch The Netherlands, February 16th 2006